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An email came from Faith Morgan with a link to a documentary film called “Passive House Revolution,” produced by the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It was a busy day, but I thought I could use a break from words, so I left the stack of unopened emails for a while and watched the film. I’m glad that I did. [continue reading]
Weatherization is about more than just energy efficiency. It has always been about the health and comfort of the weatherized home’s occupants as well. For a long time these benefits of weatherization have been called “non-energy benefits.” But the health effects of weatherization have now taken pride of place alongside energy benefits. Now there is new research showing increased health and well being among families whose homes have been weatherized. A ... [continue reading]
Training in building science and energy efficiency is essential to moving the house building industry forward into Net Zero Energy, successfully. As BHE COO, Hal Richman has observed, many people in our industry do not see the entire value chain. It’s a complicated one – easy to see in this diagram how the home building industry is a hot, fragmented mess of experts and expertise, completely at odds with itself sometimes. [continue reading]
The International Window Film Association (IWFA) said California residents can save the equivalent of four million barrels of oil yearly, or about the annual output of three, 500-Megawatt power stations, if window film were installed on just 10 percent of the dwellings built before building energy codes were mandated. California leads the way as the first state to add window film into its building code and the opportunity for achieving the state’s energy goals ... [continue reading]
With the Google buyout of NEST thermostats, attention has turned from the “smart meter” to the thermostat as a focal point of residential energy efficiency. (Read this recent editorial by Alan Meier.) But several years ago Energy Star decided to no longer certify programmable thermostats, since several studies showed that people at home did not take advantage of the thermostat’s programming possibilities. One reason why people didn’t program the ... [continue reading]
If we want to make good, or great, home performance a reality for more people and families across North America, we must come to some agreement on standard retrofit packages that work. Not every house is the same, but we can agree on standards that can be widely, quickly, and efficiently applied to similar housing types. The home performance community has more than three decades of experience to bear on the question. Please add your ... [continue reading]
An article published in The New York Times titled "How To Get A Job At Google" got me thinking about one of the most innovative companies in the 21st century. Google, the people who want to "organize the world's information," was named one of the best places to work in 2012 and 2013 not only because of the free food 24/7, but also because of their culture and the Googlers who work there. [continue reading]
Quantity Quotes is a great tool for builders and contracters looking to save time and money on bulk purchases of energy-efficient products. [continue reading]
Today the Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI) announced the launch of a national rating program to provide customers with an affordable, easy to understand rating of their home that can be combined with a comprehensive home energy audit. The BPI Rating Program is now available in Florida, which last July recognized BPI as one of a select group of organizations authorized to provide a Building Energy-Efficiency Rating System (BERS) in the state. BPI's program begins ... [continue reading]
Many years ago I worked for a boss that would occasionally ask me questions that he already knew the answers to. Why? He wanted to know if I knew the answer. A couple of years ago I started asking contractors in my seminars a question. Like my old boss, I thought I knew the answer to the question before I asked it. I was wrong! The simple question involved how many times the contractor called ... [continue reading]
